AN: So many reviews! You guys have no idea how much you inspire me. I'm trying to push the action forward a bit, as the plot bunnies have pushed this a bit. However, I need to establish a bit more, which is largely what this chapter is for. I plan on carrying this several years into the future, but we have to get there! So, here is the next chapter for your perusal. I apologise for any misspellings or butchering of the Dothraki language. Honestly, I haven't had the time to research their sentence structure thoroughly and just used a vocabulary dictionary to piece together what I needed. Additionally, work has kicked me so soundly in the rear that I'm lucky to have written this. I did look it over - quickly - for mistakes, but I'm sure many have slipped through.
Chapter Fourteen: The Mad King Lives
Gendry had been riding for the better part of three days, and already he felt more free. Arya had been important to him; he knew that much, but there wasn't reason to it, not really. A highborn lady had no place with a blacksmith, and he wasn't a fighter for her brother's army.
He was a blacksmith, and as such, he needed a forge. He needed steel and fire and sweat, and wasn't the world at war? Wouldn't they need people with just that skill? He smiled to himself as he pulled his cloak tighter around him. Yes. Yes there were. In the North, people would meet the threat the Black Brothers had talked about in whispers. When they'd had too much wine, Pyp and Grenn murmured about men who couldn't die unless they were run through with a black blade or fire.
And who better to make these black blades?
No one. Something inside of him echoed. He'd never been more grateful to have listened to the old blacksmith that had taken him in. The man had been adamant that he learn the metals and stones and everywhich things that could be tempered and made into a weapon or an adornment.
So when they talked about a black blade, he'd known the only thing they could have been talking about. Demon Glass. It was hard enough to find, but he knew a place or two he could find it. He glanced down at the beast beneath him, trying to judge if it could make the ride. It didn't matter much. There were villages in the North close enough to some of the raw deposits that he could go on foot once he got there.
The only question became if people would buy what he made. He knew the quality wouldn't be lacking, but Demon Glass wasn't notoriously strong. It wouldn't stand many blows against another, stronger metal, but if he could temper it properly, give it a stronger alloy as a core, then perhaps he could find a market. Of course, if the stories from the Wall were true, people would buy a Demon Glass dagger for the price of a full set of armor.
He let the litte pony pick its own path over the terraine. He was in no true hurry, and the White Walkers were still waiting for them to kill each other before they really did anything. Or, at least, that's what the Black Brothers had decided was the only reason they all weren't blue eyed monster puppets. Winterfell would be the last real defense, but it would do little if it was still the burned out shell of a keep that he'd seen the last time he was there. Perhaps, he decided at he rode, perhaps there was a place for him in her life afterall.
-R.P. Game of Thrones: Pawn Takes Knight-
Robb had spent the better part of the morning just staring at the bound and gagged form of Theon Greyjoy and his sister. The ex-ward of Winterfell was pathetic really, laying in the snow as he slept. He'd pissed himself sometime during the night, staining the snow a deep yellow. The big Dothraki that his sister called Draegon had stood silently beside him all night, watching his prisoners with a wearilessness that was astounding.
His silence was unnerving but understandable. They couldn't communicate, even if they'd wanted to. For a while, Arya had been with them, whispering in the Dothraki tongue back and forth with the quiet mountain, but none of the words made much sense to Robb. Of course, at this point, the entire Lannister army could come down around his head and he'd probably not recognize.
Home. He was home. Winterfell was burned out. His father was dead. His sister was captive. His younger siblings were mud covered and thin. His brother was paralyzed. And still, there was nothing in the world that he could ask more of. Three brothers returned from the grave.
When news of the fall of Castle Black had come as far south as his armies, it had been another blow. Just another loss that seemed to compound into more and more loss. Then, he'd been told of a visitor in his tent wearing black. His heart hadn't been able to hope. There was too much that had been taken away from him.
He'd slipped into his tent and had seen the black cloak that was more familiar than anything he'd remembered. The black curling hair that fell into the thick fur. The pallor of hands. Then, the man had reached out a hand and moved one of the Lannister pieces, exactly where Robb had been debating himself. It could have been anyone really. That man could have turned and been pock marked or blue eyed. There was nothing to say that it was Jon.
Except that move on the map. So he'd said something, and the man had jumped and turned just a bit toward him. By the Gods, if that wasn't his brother's profile, he'd never seen the man in his life, but then he spoke and all doubt was gone. Robb had been frozen, unable to even move as he leaned heavily against the table. If it had moved, if Jon had moved, if the world had shifted beneath his feet, he was sure he'd have fallen and never stood again because his brother-his brother-was there and alive and whole.
And then he'd said something, and he was on his knees and nearly sobbing like a child. His mother was there and Jon had that smile on his face that said he had a secret. He'd been too overwhelmed to do anything but follow Jon. He'd follow Jon anywhere now, he was nearly sure. It was the last thing he had.
Until it wasn't, and then that gift was given to him by his so-called bastard brother as well. He'd given him back everything and then a little more. It didn't matter that Rickon hadn't recognized him immediately or that Bran was still unable to walk. It made little difference that Arya wore Dothraki clothes and seemed more comfortable than them than any dress she'd ever worn.
The final gift had been Theon Greyjoy, and Robb wasn't sure if he wanted to hug the half-traitor for lying about the death of Bran and Rickon or kill him for the pain that came with the lie. The initial betrayal cut deeply, but he knew that the other man could have killed either of the boys. Bran could hardly run away, and Rickon would go to Theon with a smile on his face until an arrow slipped between his ribs.
And yet, he'd held the proof of their life in his arms. He'd held them in his arms. Damn the Greyjoy heir to the deepest pits of hell, but Robb couldn't bring himself to hate the man he once called brother with as much fire as he had only a few days ago.
"Coward," Draegon grunted in the Common Tongue, and Robb turned toward him quickly, eyes widening.
"You speak the Common Tongue?" Robb asked him, but the other man only arched an eyebrow.
"Chako speak Arya," Draegon offered as reply, but it was so broken that Robb wondered if the man knew what he'd said.
"Chako?" He asked, pointing to the man, who just shook his head and turned, indicating over his shoulder to a smaller man who was throwing a spitted boar over a camp fire.
"Chako," he said again, and Robb nodded. It wouldn't matter. Boar didn't interest him. Neither did speaking to a Dothraki in a broken language.
"Draegon doesn't speak our tongue," Arya's voice startled him. "But I'm teaching him." She turned toward the bigger man and said something in Dothraki that came out lilting and a bit awkward. The big man's lips split into a smile and he shoved her hard, nearly sending her toppling into Robb. Arya launched herself back, pushing against the immobile wall.
"Naquis ver," the big man said affectionately and pushed Arya away from him again. Her smile brightened as she turned toward Robb.
"Zhokwa ver," she said, indicating Robb with her chin. Draegon chuckled slightly and shook his head.
"Vo zhokwa ver, vosma vo naquis ver." Arya smirked.
"He says you aren't a big wolf," Arya said with a chuckle. Robb looked at Draegon measuringly for a moment.
"No, I suppose not, if I'm standing by a mountain of a man." Arya's eyes darkened slightly at that.
"Not a mountain," she said firmly. "A Dothraki is not a mountain." She turned away from her brother then and moodily jumped up on the back of a supply wagon next to Draegon. The Dothraki eyed Robb for a moment before speaking in quick, hushed Dothraki. The girl gave him a hesitant response, and he just nodded, going back to watching his prisoner.
"I've had you back less than a day and already you're cross," Robb said, a frown on his face. "I'd rather we not fight." Arya glanced over at him and nodded, the dark frown disappearing.
"The Mountain was in King's Landing," Arya said after a long moment. "I watched him kill his horse because he lost the jaust. He tried to kill Sir Laurace." She frowned again, but Robb had seen this type of frown before. She was trying to work something out in her mind. "He would have, except the Hound stopped him."
"Sandor Clegane," Robb said with a nod. Everyone knew that his brother was insane. The man had suffered his brother's madness more than any other man. "He's in my company."
"Who?" Arya asked, her head shooting up.
"Sandoro Clegane," Robb answered. "He rode out from King's Landing and brought back Ice."
"But not Sansa," Arya said darkly. "Still a bird in a cage." She jumped from the back of the wagon and fled before Robb could stop her.
Arya didn't know how to feel about her sister anymore. In Winterfell, they'd warred, surely enough, but it was always with the underlying acceptance of family. Things had changed in King's Landing. Sansa had found her prince, even if he was a withered thing without pity or remorse. She'd lied to protect him, and those lies had cost her Nymeria and Micah. Micah. His death was on her head, just as her father's was upon Joffrey's.
But it was Sansa that could have stopped it, should have stopped it. The truth wasn't such a heavy thing. Lies were moreso, thick and evil, spreading like an ulcer. Sansa, always perfect from her curling red hair to her clean fingernails, was suddenly and irrevocably marked as damaged in Arya's eyes. It was partly why she'd stopped wearing dresses in King's Landing. It was partly why she'd given up with the hair styles and the beauty and all of the things that made up a lady. If Sansa was the perfect little lady, then Arya would be as opposite as possible.
And she had been, until she'd nearly run head long into Danaerys Targaryen, a picture of womanly grace and beauty with all of the morality that Arya could ask for. Strength and beauty. Honesty and fierceness. Freedom and duty. A perfect balance of all things, and if Arya was honest, she more than idolized the woman.
Of course, part of that came from the tall, dark eyed Dothraki that met her in her dreams at night. Drogo showed her his life from the ghost grasses to the great ocean. He showed her his first battle. He showed her the first battle he lost, that day in his tent, to Danaerys Targaryen, and Arya knew that he had never thought loss could be such a pleasure.
They had loved each other. Payment for an army had given him a future. A son. A son that he sometimes carried in his arms when he visited her at night. The boy had Danaerys's pale skin and Drogo's dark hair. He would be a beauty, and oddly enough, he reminded her of Jon. Dark haired and fair skinned. Drogo had pointed it out on occasion, how similar the two were, and she had laughed and nodded. It made the big man frown.
The Dothraki were a comfort. She could understand them, even if they tended to spill blood far more readily that she'd like. They were simpler. She didn't have to pretend to be anything she wasn't. They made her strong. Since they'd first been reuinited, Arya had been avoiding her mother for that very purpose, which was what had her out of their tent and with Draegon so early.
There was no avoiding her mother though. Hadn't Arya learned that years ago at Winterfell?
The woman was more beautiful than Arya remembered, with her deep red hair and her soft eyes. "You have been avoiding me," Catelyn said, voice accusatory but gentle.
"I..." Arya caught herself. What could she tell her mother? Could she really say that she felt more comfortable with someone else's culture than her own? that she would rather be strong than lady-like? "Didn't want to disappoint you." She finally decided upon.
Catelyn looked at her sharply, a frown on her lips. "You listen to me," she said sternly. "Listen, Arya Stark. You could never disappoint me. You're...you survived. You found your way back to me. I wouldn't care if you'd come back married and with child." Arya chuckled. Surely marriage wasn't her mother's greatest fear as far as she was concerned. Dismembered or disfigured had far better probabilities.
"I'm never going to be Sansa," Arya murmured, feeling the sting of shame in her eyes. Never perfect in her mother's eyes.
"Oh, none of that," Catelyn said, sharply. "Sansa is perfect in her own way. You are perfect in yours." Catelyn paused and drew a long breath. "Things are changing. It is fine to be a lady in times of peace and civility, but it is another to be strong when there are hardships."
"I have a boy's haircut," Arya countered, exhasperation on her face. Catelyn laughed and Arya couldn't help but chuckle.
"So you'll have a boy's haircut until it grows," Catelyn said softly, hugging the girl against her side. They sat there, side by side, in front of a small fire, mother and daughter as different as they could be and yet far more similar than either had ever known.
-R.P. Game of Thrones: Pawn Takes Knight -
Jaime had yet to see his son, and that was something he planned to change rather quickly. Back in his armor, polished to such a shine that it was almost embarrassing with his white cloak billowing behind him, he made his way toward the royal chambers.
He felt awkward and uncomfortable in all of the fanfair after spending so long trudging through the country. The herald outside Joffrey's door was pekid and pale, eyes darting quickly around until they spotted Jaime. "My King is indisposed, my Lord." He said, though he bowed his head and fiddled with the hem of his tunic.
"Is a nephew too indisposed to see his uncle?" Jaime asked, though it ached in him to not just speak the truth after all of this madness.
"Yes, my Lord. My King gave specific instruction, and if I..." Jaime ignored the man and moved toward the door. "No! No, my Lord, please. Please, I'll be-"
"You would do well to move," Jaime said, glancing pointedly down at the man's hand where it gripped his elbow. "And take your hands off of me."
"I'm sorry, my Lord, but the punishment if I allow you to enter will be more than the punishment for stopping you," the herald said, voice shaking more.
"Foolishness," Jaime said, pushing the man aside and throwing the doors open. The site inside didn't register at first. There was the royal bed-and god he prayed Joffrey had a mattress made new-and drapings. The large, plush lounge. Everything that gold and red coloring of the Lannisters.
Except Jaime couldn't recall when the red had gotten quite so dark. He didn't see the bodies at first. Just the dried blood. Just the evidence of a crime without victim.
"Who dares-" Joffrey's high pitched demand was cut short as he looked at his uncle-father. "Uncle Jaime." He said softly, a small smile crooking the corner of his lip. "I knew they couldn't hold you for long. No one holds a Lannister."
"No," he murmured, eyes wide and locked on the two women. One was draped across the lounge, one arm up and over the back of the sofa, as if she was just stretching in leasure. The other was leaned against the bed, arms and head down, as if she had slouched there. Both were pinned down, bolts through their bodies to hold them in place. Their blood pooled on the floor and fell in spatters against walls and tapestries.
"What have you..." he couldn't form the words, couldn't make his mind wrap around the three small drops of blood that were smeared against his son's cheek. With a shaking hand, he reached forward, smearing the blood with his fingertips and bringing it toward his face. His jaw lax, he stared at it, mind not wanting to place it as blood. "Blood." He said. His mouth knew what it was even if his mind didn't.
"Not mine," Joffrey said, as if he was amused and comforting a child. "As you can see, I've been busy." He held his arms out wide, spinning in a circle and raising his jaw. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" He asked, but he kept on speaking. "My fiance thinks they're captivating. You just missed her in the hall. Beauty. You'll have to meet her immediately. I'd like you in her private guard."
"Of course," Jaime whispered, his lips doing his bidding to keep with the formalities that a king demanded. His mind was another beast. Lost in darkness and confusion, his mind didn't want to reconcile the boy-his son-with the murderer in front of him. Surely though, that was Joffrey crossing the large room and pulling a crossbow from a table. He was saying something, trying to show Jaime something, but all he could process was the bolt as it left bow with a twang and found hold in the standing woman's head, forcing it back and pinning her skull to the tall bed poster behind her.
"Excuse me for interrupting, my King," Jaime heard himself say and tried to smile. "I was just so eager to see you well."
"You are my favorite uncle," Joffrey said with a smile. "You understand. You're always welcome." Jaime nodded and turned away, nearly escaping through the door before Joffrey called after him. "Send that herald in, would you?" He asked, and Jaime nodded. Sickly, he left through the doors, pulling them shut behind him.
Out in the hall, the herald was seated on the ground, head in his knees and sobbing. Jaime considered the man a long moment. "Go, run." He said simply, and the herald looked up at him with wide eyes. "Outrun the Mad King." He'd said it as if in a trance, the memory of those words on his lips so many times in the past. He'd tried before, so many times...
He stumbled through the hall, leaning heavily against the walls, trying to find the strength of his past, of his youth. There'd been a time when he had stood by and followed the Mad King's orders to carry out a murder. But those years were behind him, or so he'd thought. Hadn't he delt with the moniker of King Slayer most of his life for the surety that he'd never see such madness again?
And there it was, in his own offspring.
He nearly laughed at the irony. He'd killed one cancer and given life to another. Someone caught him and set him down heavily on a seat, but his eyes were sightless. The words were toneless and unintelligable. "The Mad King lives," he whispered. He went silent after that, unable to even think past the knowledge of what he'd created.
Margery Tyrell was sick to her stomach. The blood was thick in her nose still, and she'd been walking for nearly full on an hour. The women wouldn't flee her mind, but she kept that smile on her face. The Tyrell smile. Her grandmother had taught her well.
A drunk stumbled against a wall a few paces in front of her, and as she drew near, she saw his white cloak and golden hair. Jaime Lannister was not a man to forget. She caught his elbow as he stumbled and helped him to the ground, ears burning at his mantra.
"The Mad King lives," he repeated. "The Mad King lives."
So he'd seen, she thought. And wouldn't that send even the strongest of hearts into a hole? She'd been warned. She'd been told time and time again, and even her acting had been challenged. Margery Tyrell, she thought with distates, the great actress. After her marriage she'd have one more great feat of theatre, one more role to play. Mourning wife.
She looked at the man in front of her, face in a grim frown. He'd be put to death if Joffrey heard him, surely, even if he was the King's own uncle. Or father, if you believed Ned Stark, as Margery was likely to do. "Come on, Sir Jaime," she murmured, heaving the man to his feet and leading him down one of the servant's halls. The man fought him for a few steps, but he gave up eventually, following like a horse on lead. Margery smiled at the servants they encountered, murmuring explanations of a stomach illness, too much drink or perhaps a bit too heavy of food after being gone so long.
Margery Tyrell, the great actress. She was believed by any who would listen because they liked her-loved her. Someday, she would rule on the Iron Throne and the people would love their ruler again. It had been far too long since the people could do so.
Closing AN: The Dothraki translation goes as such:
Little wolf
Big wolf
Not a big wolf, but not a little wolf.